25 Signs #yourenotreallyontwitter

Twitter Is Pencil and Paper

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a first grade teacher. I see Twitter as a 21st Century version of pencil and paper. I do believe that we can invent millions of ways to use paper and pencil. No rules are the right way to use it … draw, write, scribble, make circles over and over, be a poet, be a novelist, make a journal. Twitter is just as open and flexible.

I’ve never been one for rules.

What prompted this list was not a rant.

Here’s what happened.

About a week or so ago, on a Saturday, I was going through the people I follow on Twitter — people I’ve met at events, people I’ve talked to on Twitter, or people who follow me that I follow back. Over the course of a few hours, I reviewed 61000+ accounts to find those who were no longer active. I started by sorting out those who hadn’t tweeted for 90 days or longer. Then I started looking at their tweet counts — some tweeted less than once a day. That’s less than 365 tweets in a year!

As I was deleting the Twitter Quitters, I started thinking of people — some of them on TV — who say

“I tried Twitter and I don’t get it.”

“No one would talk to me.”

“It’s stupid and silly.”

or things like that. Which led me to think, they weren’t really ON Twitter, meaning some people leave Twitter before they figure out what all of the excitement is about. They never get the Twitter experience. And that happens because they approach thinking it’s supposed to be something different than conversation.

And at some point memories of Jeff Foxworthy’s litany of ways to tell “You’re a Redneck” popped in my head and I was suddenly channeling him and tweeting with the hashtag #yourenotreallyontwitter and some folks joined in.

If you average less than 1 tweet a day, #yourenotreallyontwitter

If you haven’t tweeted since 2011, #yourenotreallyontwitter

If you never tweet about anything but yourself, #yourenotreallyontwitter

If your avatar is still an egg 6 months after you got here, #yourenotreallyontwitter

@jfouts noted: If you don’t reply to mentions. Ever. #yourenotreallyontwitterâ

If your avatar is a picture of someone else, #yourenotreallyontwitter

@ValaAfshar added: If you use twitter as a megaphone, instead of a telephone, then #yourenotreallyontwitter

If your only follower is an account you also own, #yourenotreallyontwitter

If someone else tweets for you, #yourenotreallyontwitter , they are.

@Tivitamivita added: If you never tweet about anything but #social media bla bla, #yourenotreallyontwitter

If you’re only talking to certain people because you know it will raise your klout score, #yourenotreallyontwitter

@MaureenAlley contributed: if all you tweet are Pinterest-only tweets #yourenotreallyontwitter

If your every tweet is 1 link and 9 hashtags, #yourenotreallyontwitter

If you think of your follower group as your “list” my guess is that #yourenotreallyontwitter

@CraigFifield cited: if you tweet a large % of famous quotes #yourenotreallyontwitter #youareactuallyboring

If your last 40 tweets went to strangers you don’t follow and all say “buy from me,” #yourenotreallyontwitter , you’re a spammer

@Theatresaurus made the observation that: if you think you know the rules of twittering #yourenotreallyontwitter

@erin_mcmahon threw in: If you think you can make one-size-fits-all rules about what it is to be on Twitter, #yourenotreallyontwitter

and I replied: and if you think there aren’t any rules #yourenotreallyontwitter — treating people like people counts here too.

@CarltonHawkins remarked: If your every tweet is 1 link at 9 hashtags, #yourenotreallyontwitter

If you only ask for retweets from famous people #yourenotreallyontwitter

@mikeyb95 stated: If I can’t learn about you from your bio #yourenotreallyontwitter

And finally, if you unfollow someone as soon as they follow you back …. #yourenotreallyontwitter but you already knew that.

And one for those who already know all of those –

@NarissaTweets reminds us: If you’ve never made a #TwitterTypo #yourenotreallyontwitter

Now of course if you have a Twitter account and a password that hasn’t been hacked by a phishing scam link you clicked in an AutoDM discussing the nasty things being said about you, you’re probably on Twitter.

What I hope is that you’re talking to folks, finding great content, learning things you wouldn’t find anywhere else, and building a neighborhood on the Internet that reflects you most uniquely and doing it just the way you find right.

After all my Twitter isn’t your Twitter and you get to pick.

But I hope you won’t be a Twitter Quitter until you find out what it could be about.

What people don’t realize is not only does this make them look pathetic on Twitter, but can lose me as a blog reader as well. Nothing more frustrating than to go to a blog I have discovered, and click their “Twitter connect” icon only to find out how pathetic they are on the platform. Or worse, yet, see if in a sidebar on a Twitter widget stream.

OK,I am ROLLING on the floor here because I have only been on Twitter for like 2 months. So I set my phone up to send me a text if anyone was following me (my bf does that but she is into that vampire stuff and had a huge following). Well I got up the second day and there was a text that YOKO ONO was following me. I hadn’t had my coffee yet. So I said, “No fucking way.” to the dog, the only life form present at the time. And I went and made my coffee.

I then signed into Twitter and sure enough, there she was, with the official little sign. She is way at the bottom of my Followers. I guess she caught my tag or something, liked the bio? Who knows? Have I heard from her? Nah. I sent her a thank you for following me. I send everyone a thank you because I am a Southerner and a slave to convention and a dork.

Anyway, adored this blog list. I abhore all of the self promotion. I realize it is a necessary evil and if and when I finish my writing, I know I shall do the same. Also the pontification. Good God. And the quotes, who knew dead people were so chatty? Thanks again. I look forward to reading your tweets. Peace K

What if you tweet every five/ two /1 minutes? What if you twitter every last little thing. What if it is just too much irrelevant information. What if your tweets become visual/mental clutter? What if its boring? What if you just tweet too darned much? Maybe you’re not really on twitter…maybe you’re just annoying. Maybe you should just get to work. Anybody??

Great post Liz… as always. And I agree as far as the engagement and interaction part of Twitter. But I think it is important to point out, and make people aware, that Twitter has tremendous value as a real-time search platform and many use it this way without ever tweeting or interacting in any way, in addition there are a tremendous amount of lurkers who suck up conversations, content, and info without ever tweeting themselves. In my opinion, there is great value in those masses and they should not be overlooked. I not only interact and engage on Twitter, but I publish a great deal of original thought as well as information about things I am passionate about or working on, and want all those who are simply absorbing content, searching for something interesting or valuable, and watching, to see be able to have access.

In the last couple weeks, a huge percentage of my tweets have come from pinterest.com, which should break a rule here. But that seems to be the sort of thing my followers like; at least one in ten of those tweets is favourited.

If that were the only thing I ever tweeted, it would just be an advertisement for pinterest.com. But I also tweet a daily link to my webcomic, and usually a smattering of random thoughts and replies.

Twitter is an early warning system, our personal modern style telegraph that connects us to the world and enables us to switch from the first and second fundamental interactions in physics, Newton’s gravitation (your offline world) and Maxwell’s electromagnetism (once you switched on an electric bulb or an electronic device) to the third, strong interactions of quantum mechanics (your personal network of your strong ties) and fourth fundamental interaction of physics, the weak interaction (your social network of your weak ties).

And as you mentioned in point 3 (If you never tweet about anything but yourself, #yourenotreallyontwitter) twitter isn’t about me, it’s about us!

Great post. All true. As an added note, along the lines of @jfouts note, “If you donât reply to mentions. Ever. #yourenotreallyontwitterâ – a continuation is:

If you claim to be a social media “expert” and don’t reply to mentions #yournotreallyontwitter and #yournotreallyanexpert.

The unfortunate part is I can think of about 5 so called experts selling their “expertise” that rarely if ever engage with their followers and mentions. A few of the most sought after, highly respected ones at that.

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